


The Back Window's Down

by aneurysmface



Series: Oh, Common Life [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, but it works out ok in the end, peter has abandonment issues and chris realizes a little too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:56:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1439212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aneurysmface/pseuds/aneurysmface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of Chris and Peter's first fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Back Window's Down

Peter and Chris go all of a thirty-four days without having a fight. What they do have is a lot of passionate sex at Peter’s apartment (he says it’s because it’s more convenient, but Chris knows that it’s really because Peter likes being able to smell him even when he’s not there). The fight is over nothing, they’ll claim in hindsight, but in reality it’s about everything.

Peter has a bad day--the kind where he gets locked in his own head when he thinks about what other memories his sister might have taken from him, about the screams of his youngest nephew as the flames got too close to him, about the terrifying reality that Chris is the only person in the world that is currently willingly associating with him.

Because it’s a bad day, Peter isn’t feeling hospitable when Chris shows up unannounced--with a black eye and a cut across his jaw--and goes off on him, calling him every derogatory name Peter can think of because he’s angry that Chris got himself hurt. He tells Chris that it was selfish and stupid. Chris gives as good as he gets and ends up walking right back out the door less than a half an hour later, keys in hand and a scowl on his face. He gets in his SUV and guns it down the highway, not stopping until he hears his stomach growling and decides to pull into a run-down roadside diner where he orders a burger that’s a tad too greasy and fries that are hand-cut and cooked just right.

He heads to the bathroom before leaving and a piece of writing on the dirty walls catches his eye: “we all walk the same straight line, but I just happen to crawl.” Before he knows it, he’s back in his Tahoe, doing ninety back toward Beacon Hills.

He knocks on Peter’s door with urgency, notes to himself that somehow he always ends up back at Peter’s. Chris is pushing his way in as soon as Peter cracks the door open, is pressing into Peter’s personal space before it’s even shut, and has Peter’s mouth against his own by the time it clicks closed.

Peter fights him at first, apparently still on edge from earlier, but he softens when Chris pulls back, taking Peter’s head between his hands and looking him straight in the eye when he says “I’m sorry I left.”

“I shouldn’t have--” Peter begins, but Chris cuts him off with a gentle kiss.

“I was afraid.” He says when he pulls back. “I was afraid you were going to end up being like Victoria was, but then I realized you were just concerned.”

“You showed up without warning with a cut three inches from an artery and expected me to be unconcerned?”

Chris sighs and slumps around Peter, burying his face in the werewolf’s neck. “Victoria was always so cold about it when I’d come home from a hunt injured. She never approved of ‘the sheer stupidity’ that must have been involved in order for a hunter to get hurt. She wanted me to be perfect--a clean-shaven Prince Charming that never lost any battles against the wicked forces of the world. Whenever I ended up hurt, she called it incompetence and--”

Peter nuzzles into Chris’ hair then, pressing a soft kiss behind his ear and whispers, “I just don’t want to lose you, too.”

And Chris knows, in that moment, exactly what he means to Peter, exactly what set him off when Chris had shown up injured. Part of what made Peter as moody and unpredictable as he is was that he had lost his anchor--twice. Most wolves never lose their anchors and those that do don’t usually survive. And now Peter was anchoring himself to Chris. It all made sense, the fact that Peter made sure his apartment smelled perpetually of Chris, the shirts that Chris had pretended not to notice were missing, the irrational reaction to Chris’ injury.

He picks up his head and looks at Peter carefully. Chris isn’t sure if he can do this, if he can bear the responsibility of being an anchor, but he sees the fear in Peter’s eyes, sees the genuine concern that Chris was seriously injured, sees something neither of them can acknowledge at the moment, and he takes a deep breath.

You never know what you’re capable of until you put yourself in a situation that challenges you.

“I’m not leaving you. Not by choice, anyway. I will fight with every ounce of will I have to be here for you whenever you need me, whenever you want me to be there. I don’t want to lose you, either, Peter.”

Peter’s eyes flash for a split second before he closes them and presses Chris back against the door with a kiss. He growls roughly and pins Chris’ arms above his head with one hand, reaches down to undo Chris’ pants with the other. He jerks Chris off roughly, sucks a bruise into the juncture of neck and shoulder before biting down on top of it. Chris bucks harshly into Peter’s hand and comes with a cry.

Peter licks his fingers clean while Chris watches from half-open eyes. He lets Chris’ hands go and turns toward the kitchen. Chris watches him from where he’s slumped against the door, too boneless to move as Peter pulls open a drawer and takes something out of it.

“What’s that?” Chris asks, his voice hoarse.

Peter returns to Chris, takes one of his hands and presses something small and metallic into his palm. Chris looks down and almost stops breathing. A key. Peter Hale, known King of Trust and Abandonment Issues, has given Chris a key to his apartment. He knows there’s no way that decision had to be easy for Peter.

Chris pulls his own key ring out of his jacket pocket and deftly slips Peter’s key on it. He’ll worry about what to do with his own apartment later (he’ll probably sublet it to Isaac for a discount). For now, he settles for pulling Peter close and kissing him softly.

Peter pulls back first. “Come to bed.”

And that’s when Chris realizes it’s nearly midnight, that Peter had answered the door in sweatpants and that the shirt he’s wearing is one of the ones Chris pretends isn’t missing. Chris smiles. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> [The Back Window's Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvgDubTLFsU) by Fireworks.


End file.
